


dandelion wine

by thefudge



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, F/M, Kings & Queens, Renaissance Era, my babies being freaks together, ost: UNKLE - the dog is black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:29:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28573038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: The new queen does not blink too often, or sometimes not at all. It’s not noticeable, unless you’re looking.He looks.(or the king's assassin/henchman falls for the queen)
Relationships: Bonnie Bennett/Malachai "Kai" Parker
Comments: 22
Kudos: 78





	dandelion wine

i.

The new queen does not blink too often, or sometimes not at all. It’s not noticeable, unless you’re looking.

He looks.

He did not _set_ out to look, but she is the only member of the assembly who never turns away or closes her eyes when he brings the axe down on the condemned man (and occasional woman’s) neck.

No, she always looks directly at the body, at the tender place where flesh and bone are severed. She looks at the head as it rolls into the basket below.

And all this time, she does not blink. 

From behind his dark cowl, he can see her lips moving. She must be praying for the doomed soul.

ii.

“What do you make of my new queen?” the King asks him one evening as they lounge in the star-chamber. The rest of his council has departed, but Malachai is not like the other members of his privy council. He’s not of noble blood, nor is he a landed magnate. What he is is a man of many uses: in truly Renaissance fashion, Malachai serves as modest courtier, adviser, henchman, executioner, and occasional spy. King Alaric has found his talent for killing quite profitable in the past.

Malachai pours wine in his goblet. He knows this question is a mere pretext for the king to vent his own feelings. “She seems very pious.”

“ _Too_ pious,” the King nods. “All she seems to do is pray in the chapel or play devotional hymns on the lyre in her little garden, where I am told she petitions the worms and the radishes too. Worse than a nun, they say. I should hope she’ll be able to provide an heir before she cloisters her cunt too.”

Malachai smiles a slanted smile. These are little tales told by her ladies-in-waiting, but they often can’t be relied upon. He knows, because he’s tried and tested all of them since they came to court.

“She seems dutiful enough,” he comments when the King expects a reply from him. “Speaking of her cunt, you’ve tried her in bed, haven’t you, Your Grace?”

His Grace frowns. He only allows Malachai to speak to him this way, but sometimes he regrets having made this exception. His frown, however, soon transforms into a smirk. He can rarely resist his henchman’s more lewd invitations.

“Of course I have. She’s pleasant enough, but rather dull. She’s not like the last one, all quiet and immobile. That one felt like fucking a chest of drawers. No, Bonnie has _some_ feeling in her. She will even caress me when I let her…”

Malachai leans forward. He enjoys being the King’s private ear. “But?”

“But she always seems far away,” Alaric mutters, taking out a small dagger to clean his nails. “She’s got this far-off look in her eye, even when I kiss her, as if she were fantasizing about some poppycock knight. A woman usually closes her eyes, no? This one makes me think she’s already in love with someone else.”

Malachai stares at the King’s dagger. He recalls the fact that the queen does not blink too often, but he does not think it wise to mention such a curious detail. 

“It sounds to me like Your Grace is in danger of being cuckolded.”

“Precisely. I want you to investigate. See if this sainted vestal has got herself an equally pious lover. Maybe there’s a handsome prelate she visits for confession more often than is proper. Look through her letters, see whom she writes. Follow her on her promenades. Let’s find out who is in her thoughts.”

Malachai nods. “It will be done. Is that all?”

“For now. All I need from her is an heir. After that, we can dispose of her quickly. Either a convent, which seems more to her heart’s desire, or some godforsaken manor in the countryside. Or, if she proves to be particularly unruly…” the King trails off, an ugly smile on his face.

Malachai returns the ugly smile. “We’ll send her to that even more godforsaken household under the ground.”

Alaric claps him on the back. “There’s a good man.”

iii.

Bonnie dances with her King at each merry ball or eventide gathering, but rarely accepts the invitation of another man, be him a courtier, a nobleman, or a simple knight. She often complains of headaches and dizzy spells and sits idly by her husband, watching the other dancers with a tender, but rather placid expression on her face.

Malachai notes all this without so much as looking at her directly. He knows how to look without looking. There’s something a little odd about her refusal to dance. A lady of unimpeachable reputation would not mind being seen dancing with her subjects, but if a lady shuns such interactions it could mean she has already sinned.

Not that he believes this, or anything else he will tell His Grace, but this is what the King wishes to believe, and Malachai has managed to rise to his ambiguous position by allowing the monarch to satisfy his often ludicrous suspicions. 

He watches the King and Queen give the opening dance at Michaelmas. She moves very correctly, very graciously. Malachai slips through the throng of attendants and courtiers and follows her movements across the floor.

She takes very small, very quick steps to keep up with the King’s more brutish pace. She touches the King’s hand only when necessary.

When he puts his arm around her waist and pulls her to him and turns on the spot and lifts her from the floor, she stares over the crowd for a moment, before sinking back into his arms.

Malachai wonders what she was looking at.

He walks to the back of the great hall and stands roughly where she stood and looks up. There is a small window above the coat of arms and through that square he can see the night sky and the stars.

Towards the end of the ball, the queen is exhausted, though she has danced very little. She traces little figures on the tablecloth with her finger and smiles absently at nothing. King Alaric is dancing with the wife of a magnate whom he has bedded in the past, and you can tell from their frolicsome movements that neither the lady nor the king would mind a return of such pleasures. 

Malachai stands behind the queen’s seat.

“More wine, Your Grace?”

Bonnie is startled. She looks quickly over her shoulder. Her green eyes are not entirely green, he notes. They are tinged with a strange shade of violet. There is a depth to them that makes him think of war-ravaged widows. He hasn’t seen that look since the battlefield, but he doubts that this young queen has led a very difficult life. Suppose that, as a young maiden, none of her choices were her own, as was made obvious by her arranged marriage to the King, an exchange of lands and money more than anything else. Still, many women in the realm could complain of a worse fate. He wonders what has given her eyes all that worldly experience.

“Yes, thank you,” she says, looking at him more closely. She must be puzzled by his youthful appearance. He keeps a very short beard and does his very best to appear lithe and ungainly, more feminine than masculine. He has found that his prey falls more quickly if they believe he is nothing but a green boy.

He pours wine into her goblet.

She stares at his hands for a long time, longer than is proper.

“I recognize those hands,” she says softly. “Or rather the wrists.”

Malachai steps back, placing his hands behind him.

Bonnie looks up at him. “Unless it isn’t you? Though I believe you must be the fellow. You do our King a great service.”

Something hot bubbles under the surface, he feels it rising in his throat. No one has ever recognized his work, much less his hands.

He returns her look. He nods. “You’ve got a good eye, Your Grace.”

“And you have good, strong hands to wield that axe,” she says with a soft smile. “It must be difficult sometimes.”

Unbidden, the image of her head rolling in a basket comes to him. His axe coated in her sweet-smelling blood. He stares at the fragile binding of her neck.

She turns away from him and looks back at the dancers.

“Your Grace,” he mutters and dissolves into the shadows.

iv.

The irony is that in the privacy of his small rooms Malachai is more chaste than outdoors, where so many can see. He will give himself to all kinds of barbarities outside his bedchamber, but his sanctum sanctorum is a place of work and reflection. In other words, Malachai prides himself on his self-control.

Tonight should be no different as he pours over letters and ledgers.

Yet, halfway through his tasks, he kicks the parchments aside, and unlaces himself. He strokes his cock and tilts his head back, forgetting himself.

_You have good, strong hands to wield that axe._

He fucks his hand with relish. He pictures that dainty throat, her head inclined towards him. He pictures coming all over her sweet face, pearl drops of his seed on that perfect cheek, those violet-green eyes making him shudder. He pictures her tongue at the corner of her mouth, licking him off her. 

v.

Her ladies are hawking. They look quite splendid in their riding dresses, holding their staffs and their leather gloves where the hawks are wont to perch. They giggle as they watch their sharp-taloned raptors tear into little dormice and squirrels.

The queen has dismounted and is picking small bunches of flowers and herbs which she places in a pouch at her waist.

Malachai watches her from the dark-green underbrush, hidden away by creepers and coppice. He feels like a fairy in a festivity play, waiting for the lady to fall asleep to bewitch her. He’d like to know what other things she keeps in her pouch.

Bonnie lowers herself to the ground and removes a small blade from her sleeve. She struggles to cut a particularly gnarly root of an ugly-looking, bulbous plant. She cuts herself a little. She brings her fingers to her lips, still dirty with soil and forest juices. She sucks on her fingers until they are clean. Then she lowers herself even further until her forehead is pressed against the damp earth and she kisses the spot she vandalized and signs the cross over it with her still wet fingers.

Malachai swallows.

He knows it’s ridiculous to be affected by such womanish gestures of superstition. But there is something deeply eerie about this devotion, the way she lowers her forehead, the way she kisses the dark soil.

So far, he has found no sign of a secret lover, but the queen does seem to yearn for something.

When the time comes to return to the castle, the ladies-in-waiting have amassed enough small animal corpses for a rich dinner of capon and squirrel meat, with a side of rabbit stew. The queen praises their efforts and takes the still warm body of a rabbit in her arms. She caresses its coat before returning it to one of the attendants carrying the game home.

vi.

The warren holes, they’re called; the secret labyrinthine passages of the castle which Malachai knows like the back of his hand. These are his haunting grounds. His lithe, wiry body sneaks easily between the narrow stone walls. He watches unsuspecting courtiers do their dirty work and change their dirty stockings and he reports back to the King. He hasn’t looked upon the queen yet, but if he wishes to know all her secrets, he must do so now.

There is no hesitation in his step as he creeps between the walls; it’s only that he has always done this job in cold blood. Of course, he enjoys certain aspects of it, but he’s always made sure never to be truly seduced, because that’s how you lose your head, quite literally.

But tonight, as he moves the blocks of stone to give way to a small hole in the queen’s private chambers, he feels not only like a Peeping Tom, but like a fool because his heart is beating faster than usual.

He finds Bonnie reading in a soft chair by the fireplace. Her chambermaids have brushed her hair and braided it and changed her into her small clothes. Her feet are resting on the grate, satin slippers almost sliding from her heels. The hem of her dressing gown falls across her calf. Her flesh looks golden in the firelight, a reddish gold like wine.

After a while, she removes her slippers and bends down and touches the soles of her feet. They look red and inflamed, warmed all this time by the flame. She steps beyond the carpet on the sweet rushes of the ice-cold stone and she sighs with pleasure at the contrast.

Malachai watches intently. Nothing of note is happening and yet his breath comes fast. He doesn’t want to miss a single moment.

Bonnie abandons her book and steps beyond an arras into her bedchamber. She walks to her dressing table and sits down in front of the stained mirror. She watches her face in the mirror. She turns sideways and inspects her profile. She is not admiring herself, not looking for beauty marks or flaws. Rather, she looks like a physician inspecting a strange new organ. She touches her cheek. She touches her lips. She opens her mouth and touches her tongue. She stares at her tongue for a long time. Then she drops her hands in her lap and she clenches her fists, as if looking for a well of power there.

Malachai feels his limbs going numb from such prolonged vigil.

She keeps sitting in front of that mirror, her rigid back to him, doing nothing, as if to taunt him.

_Turn around._

_Undress._

_Go to bed_ , he urges her with his mind.

But she will not.

She sits in front of that mirror for what feels like ages until her image in it seems to blur. Once in a while, she will touch a part of her, as if to verify she is still there.

It is like a spell.

Malachai rubs his eyes. Eventually, one of them must admit defeat.

He concedes first. He walks away, shuffling through the warren holes in disgrace, feeling equally humiliated and enthralled.

vii.

When the King is displeased with or tired of his Queen’s presence, he sends her away from his chambers dressed only in her night shift. He does not allow her even a robe to wrap around her modest self. She must walk like this, almost naked from his chamber to her own. It is a kind of penance for having upset God’s anointed.

Tonight, she must have displeased him greatly because she is also sporting a swollen cheek, but you’d never know it by the way she walks, spine straight as a bowstring. She walks behind her guards with such unwavering dignity that it seems she is intent upon shaming the king.

Malachai watches from the shadows. He’s sitting in the recess of passage, hands folded across his chest, affecting nonchalance. But his jaw is clenched too tight for comfort. Why did Alaric hit her? He’s told him, time and again, that if he must do violence to his wives, he shouldn’t touch their pretty faces.

Yet, the thought of other hidden bruises on her body gives him just as much dissatisfaction. He quite abhors lowbred violence, violence of the stupid, violence of the weak. Hurting someone is always a matter of balance, of control. You can improvise your method. You can even devise surprises. But you must always be the master of violence, and not the other way around.

He doesn’t like an ugly court.

He watches her figure, dressed in white, pass him by. He can almost see the shape of her breasts underneath her thin shift. The suggestion of her fragile nakedness is far more compelling than any exhibition. He prefers the shape of it, so enticing and remote, to the actual thing.

She stops before him. She has spotted him.

She isn’t allowed to stop.

“Good sir, will you lend me your doublet?”

Malachai parts his lips.

Her violet-green eyes do not beseech him. She asks sweetly, without a hint of discomfort, confident of his acquiescence.

He takes a step towards her. The guards have also stopped and are watching the exchange intently.

“I’m afraid it wouldn’t suit you, Your Grace,” he says, but his face must tell her a different story.

Bonnie smiles, eyes glittering with unshed tears.

“So you will not give it to me?”

“No. Not tonight.”

She nods. “Very well. Then you owe me a favor. Make sure you don’t forget.”

She doesn’t wait for his reply. She turns on her heels and walks away.

Malachai watches her until she becomes a speck on the corridor. He leans against the wall and exhales.

viii.

It’s not the last time she asks. Whenever the king is in the mood to punish her – which happens rather regularly –, she walks down that corridor and stops at his recess. She asks him for his doublet or his cloak, but he must always refuse. Thrice it has happened already.

He could simply not stand sentry in that corridor. He could steer clear of her. But he does not. _Cannot_. He’s curious about her, even when he knows she will ask the same thing.

It drives him a little mad, her sweet and unbothered persistence, and the image of her, almost entirely naked, covered only in what he could give her.

ix.

Since she is currently occupied in the King’s bed, Malachai steals into her rooms and collects the letters on her escritoire. He reads them quickly, in a gulp, and then sits down and reads them a second time, slowly.

She writes to her family in a very sedate fashion, mentioning nothing of import, or at least nothing to alarm any prying eyes. She makes sure to give all her love. She writes to cousins and ladies of the court who have married and landed in all corners of Europe. She mostly wants to know about their gardens. How is the sun in Spain? Can it nourish the cactus flower? She wants to know about hemlines and sewing fashions; she wants to know about the artists employed for their paintings and tapestries; she wants to know if they keep any interesting animals in their homes. At first glance, there is nothing interesting here, but Malachai senses the silent presence of money underneath all these innocent, girlish inquiries. She is perhaps assessing how much income these women have, how much they spend. Like him, perhaps she likes to know the worth of things.

When he finishes with these letters, he finds a few scant notes and daily prayers, hymn books and devotionals. There are some romances and histories lined on a shelf above his head, and among them are two Bibles, a pretty, carefully kept copy in Latin and a very tattered copy in the vulgar tongue, often perused.

There’s a small piece of parchment sticking out of the tattered copy. He opens the holy book to the gospel of John, the episode of the Crucifixion. His eyes fall upon the verse where she had drawn a little star.

_After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst._

On the small piece of parchment, she had written in a sprawling hand:

_I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst I thirst_

He follows the words with his eyes. After a while, they don’t mean anything anymore.

He turns the folded parchment in his fingers.

He thinks about the king warming her shoulder with his drunken breath. He thinks about her in the matrimonial bed, staring up at the ceiling, chanting her little chant.

He brings the paper to his lips.

_I thirst._

x.

The Queen is with child. The King is so overjoyed at the news that he forgets to punish her. He wants, in fact, to gift her something beautiful, something that will please her heart.

A small glass house is erected at the bottom of her little garden.

It’s riddled with ferns and vines and potted mysteries, a see-through pantry of green delights. Here, she stashes her herbs and powders and medicinal plants in little glass jars.

Here, only she is mistress.

But one afternoon, he finds himself there, having evaded nosy ladies-in-waiting and listless guards.

He steps quietly into her workshop. 

Bonnie is crushing petals with a pestle. She looks up at him with a smile.

Instead of telling him to leave, she invites him in.

“Would you like some dandelion wine?”

Bonnie takes a decanter of quince-yellow liquid from a small cupboard. She sets two small glasses on the work table.

He sits down on a stool nearby, body withdrawn and tense, careful not to disturb the plants.

“I appreciate that you don’t touch anything,” she remarks, pouring him a glass.

“I can well understand the annoyance of intrusion.”

“Oh yes, but it’s also best to keep a safe distance,” she says, passing him the glass.

He eyes her intently. “Why?”

Bonnie shrugs. “Not all nature is benevolent.”

He leans forward, taking the glass and swirling the dark gold liquid inside.

“Are dandelions benevolent, Your Grace?”

She laughs a small laugh, as if to say, _no, I wouldn’t poison you like that._

He smiles. He has never met a creature so gentle, yet so dangerous in that gentleness.

“Does the King wish to know how I occupy my time?” she asks after taking a sip.

Malachai remains silent, waiting.

“I assume that is why you’re here,” she adds.

“Yes,” he lies. “He wishes to know.”

“Well,” she begins, pointing to the pestle and mortar and the various vials of oils at her side. “I am making a salve from marigold, yarrow, and lavender which shall be very helpful for pain and bleeding.”

She touches her belly almost instinctively.

Malachai follows her hand with his eyes.

“Where did you learn to make it?” he asks. He knows his manner of questioning is far too familiar. One does not simply ask a queen such things.

But she doesn’t seem to mind.

“My grandmother taught me. She taught me many things. I spent most of my childhood with her until I was sent back to my father.”

“You must have loved her,” he comments boldly, though he sounds like a man who is rather curious about such foreign emotions.

“I did. What about you, do you have any living family?”

He is surprised by her question. He chuckles. “Living, yes, but they don’t give the impression of being alive.”

Bonnie cocks her head. “How do you mean?”

He clears his throat. Perhaps he shouldn’t have said that. He doesn’t know why he’s sitting down with the queen, drinking dandelion wine.

“They’re not people with whom one should consort,” he amends. “I try to forget them, as a rule.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she sounds sincere. “They ought to be proud of your elevation.” And then she asks, quite unprompted, “What was it like, when you did it the very first time?”

Malachai stares at her.

“Did what?”

Bonnie only stared back at him.

They both know what she’s asking. But no one has ever thought to ask him.

“It was easy. Easier than it should have been,” he says, licking his lips.

She nods, as if expecting the answer. Her violet-green eyes do not judge. They simply contain. They contain him.

And he knows she has tricked him; she has tricked him into needing those eyes, needing to see himself in them. He wants to be the mirror she stares into for hours.

He looks down at her hands, full of petals and pollen.

“Careful, or they’ll call you a witch, Your Grace.”

The queen smiles a secret smile. “But you won’t, will you?”

xi.

The King does not wish to imperil the life of his child, so he does not touch the queen. But after he is done with his little mistress, he calls her into his chambers. He wishes for her to taste his seed.

Malachai watches from the walls.

Bonnie kneels before him in her robes, bearing the sweetest countenance, a dimpled smile. Her wiry curls are gathered loosely in a ribbon on the side of her shoulder.

The King strokes his cock above her open palms, face contorted in effort.

It must be her sweetly-mocking face, the innocence of her contempt. He stutters angrily, unable to come.

Bonnie waits on her knees, humming softly under her breath.

Malachai smiles. He feels vindicated. He feels as if she were loyal only to him and his fantasies.

The King glares at his wife in anger. He wishes to strike her. Malachai tenses. He’s ready to come out through the secret entrance and impale the idiot on his own fucking sword if he dares.

But Alaric only barks at her to leave.

Bonnie looks for him in the corridor, but he’s not at his regular post. Malachai is elated that she is looking for him. He follows her through the warren holes like a shadow.

 _Mine_ , he thinks, and he knows how close to the flame he is.

xii.

The tourney is a grand affair. The King wishes to celebrate the future of his dynasty, the expected birth of his glorious heir.

The knights are hungry for glory. They boast their glittering armors, inset with jewels and traceries depicting their glory in holy wars abroad. Their steeds are black as night or white as snow, pieces on a chessboard to be moved at his leisure. They each promise to win the final honor in the name of Alaric’s heir.

Malachai is not a knight and has no banners, but he’s a good butcher. The King wants him to cut down the bold and the insufferable. He comes forward in modest armor, still faintly red and brown from unholy wars, and his horse is smaller too, but it doesn’t matter, because he wields the spear like a surgeon.

He pretends to look at the King in the stands, but he stares at his queen instead. He stares without staring. Her belly has grown larger. She is more mysterious and beautiful than ever.

Once Alaric has approved his suit, Bonnie rises, helped by a lady-in-waiting. She comes forward, carrying with her a little nosegay. Flowers from her garden.

She leans down for him to take them. Their fingers do not meet.

The queen is asking him to wear her favor.

Malachai bows, suppliant.

He brings the flowers to his nose and he inhales their perfume. He becomes dizzy with the perfume.

How like her to give him poison to wear next to his heart.

But in the thick of jousting, the poison only makes his horse go faster, and his hands are quicker than ever before.

He hopes she savors the blood he spills on the sand.

Still, he does not allow himself to win, though he could. He knows the king favors a particular knight whose lands could be very hospitable to him, which is why Malachai makes sure to lose to him. His armor is faintly punctured. He pretends to fall off his horse, but he jumps softly to the ground. Everything about him is a careful dance.

She watches this dance, pleased.

He is the queen’s champion, hell or high water.

xiii.

The King is displeased. His favored knight may have won, but he did not like that the queen gave her favor to Malachai, a low-born little worm who feasts on corpses.

“Why did she pick you, in particular?” he asks over wine in his private chambers. “What is her design?”

Malachai shrugs, watching him drink.

“She must have thought it a pretty jape.”

He affects so much nonchalance that Alaric cannot suspect him without looking like a fool.

“She wishes to mock me, does she?” he says, directing his anger at the woman he has never managed to grasp.

“Might only be womanly fancy. Their wits disappear when they are with child.”

Alaric grins. “That’s true. I should discipline her. Put her wits back where they belong.”

Malachai returns the leer and goads him further. Why not call the queen to his chambers and make her answer for her insolence?

He pours more wine in his goblet.

“This is much sweeter vintage,” Alaric says, licking his lips.

“Dandelion wine, Your Grace,” Malachai supplies.

xiv.

He disappears into the walls and waits for her arrival.

When she is ushered in front of the King, he is already drunk and slurring his speech.

He has lathered himself into a proper rage. He accuses her of making him a fool, of acting finer than her station, of placing herself above him. Despite his uncouth words, his true distress goes deeper. He senses she does not respect and love him and could never feel the slightest tenderness towards him, despite her gentle touch. He wishes she were truly cruel, but her sweetness only incenses him further.

He places his thick hands around her neck.

“I’d strangle you if you did not carry my heir.”

Bonnie looks up at him. “I am sorry to have upset you, Your Grace.”

Even now, she does not yield. She lets him almost choke her. She is soft in his hands. And yet, he cannot bend her.

“You should be,” he says, jaw clenched. He’s unsteady on his feet, swaying before her. His hands claw at her shoulders, trying to keep himself erect. But the desire to fall is too strong.

Bonnie takes a step back.

He kneels before her. Angry yellow spittle trickles at the corner of his mouth. He presses both hands to his chest. He calls out for his faithful spy who always hides in the walls.

Malachai steps down from his perch and opens the secret entrance. He steps into the room slowly.

The King is grasping his own throat, eyes red with terror. He points to the queen. “K-Kill her!”

Malachai smiles coldly. “I’m sorry, Your Grace, but I do owe her a favor.”

xv.

They watch the king die together. He gasps and grunts like a stricken boar to his final end. Afterwards, Malachai bends down and wipes his mouth of any traces. He will dispose of the goblets and wine later, but he must first give the queen back her favor.

He kneels before her and presents her with the bundle of flowers she gave him at the tourney, kept in his doublet, close to his chest.

“I poured the hemlock, as you instructed. The King is dead. Long live the Queen.”

She beams at him like the sun. She steps closer and takes his face between her hands.

Her violet-green eyes consume him.

“Rise, Malachai, messenger and angel of God, for that is what your name signifies, and that is who you really are.”

With these words she sanctifies him; she sanctifies this killing and all the blood he has shed.

He is clean before her, a newborn.

xvi.

She does not blink.

She does not blink as she kisses him. She watches his eyes close in abandon. His thumb caresses the side of her jaw and he thinks, _I thirst,_ and he’s almost afraid of drinking. She does not blink in the throes of passion, even though she sinks her nails into his back like a bird of prey and bites his lips, craving more. She does not blink when he fucks her raw and innocent, like a true newborn. He loves the eeriness of her gaze and he sinks into it, again and again. He whispers in her ear how much he wanted to fuck her every time he brought down the axe, and he never knew if it was him or her that was cut down, and she comes all over his cock with a cry, and still, she does not blink at all. 

xvii.

The King’s body is getting cold. They drag him into bed with them.

Bonnie lies down beside the corpse with a lazy smile. It becomes her, this tableau of death.

Malachai steals one last kiss before he steps through the secret passage and returns to his walls.

His true walls are her eyes.

He knows now why she does not blink, his little witch-queen.

She must have everything, everything she sees, trapped in that gaze, every living thing.

**Author's Note:**

> my babies being Freak Soulmates (TM) will never, ever, ever get old i'm sorry


End file.
